Introduction: Mapping the Research Field on Adult Education and Learning

Abstract

If the framing and composition of research fields are never fully fixed or saturated (Abbott 1995; Gieryn 1983), this is a particularly salient feature of the research field that deals with the education and learning of adults. Not only is the research question of adult education and learning approached from a multitude of academic disciplines – such as sociology, psychology and education – the very concepts that are used to denote this field have also undergone important changes. Such conceptual changes are visible, for instance, in the recent development whereby the model of adult education and Bildung came to be partly replaced by the notion of lifelong learning. In Europe, lifelong learning gained prominence in the policy area with the year of Lifelong Learning in 1996 and then the Memorandum on Lifelong Learning, published by the European Commission (2001), which positions lifelong learning as a central policy concept in the realisation of the Commission’s strategies. As a policy preoccupation, lifelong learning supersedes concepts of adult education (Lindeman 1926) and lifelong education (Faure 1972). The shift from focusing on education to speaking about learning is important to address in research, because it marks out a new way of conceptualising the education and learning of adults in terms of the why, the how, the what, the when and the where questions. These policy changes can also be identified within research and, particularly, in how the research field on the education and learning of adults is defined and delimited (see Chaps. 2 and 3 ). Thus, while it is clear that the research field of adult education and learning undergoes changes over time and is quite diverse in terms of the current choice of theories, research objects, methodologies and so on, little is known empirically about its current “state of affairs” and how it can be mapped out and characterised scientifically.